Sold my oilfield service company in 2014, spent two years building up ky spread, back to work in 2017, built the movie set, main part for the next three avatar sequels in La, coming out in Dec btw, mom was ready for help so took part of 2018 moving her to Texas. Then back at work fixing mfg plants, Cincinnati,Mankato,Brownsville. Retired #2 when Covid hit. Built ranch cabin in ky. Then late 2021 they found me on linked in working operation wArp speed running a div for bio pharma, I like the mix, you are busier in retirement because you have more time. Sent from my iPad using Bowhunting .com Forums
Dang! Haven't I gotten a taste of that this past month. He's never been sick before other than when he crushed his foot. At least he wasn't moving around then and heavily medicated. I'll be going through the employment sections of local papers. Also have been floating staying on just for bids. I've threatened going out part time but that's not feasible with what I do here or what he makes now. Besides he flips when I mention it. Personal I'd like a second shift type job part time.
Retirement is the perfect time to pick up new hobbies and learn new skills and reloading ammo is a very entertaining hobby and a valuable skill that also provides an excellent excuse to visit the shooting range several times per week.
If you can find anything. I'm out of powder. Been looking far and wide. I'm on so many notification lists, I started a spread sheet to keep track and update. I guess I could always go to gun broker and pay $90-100 a pound. NO WAY IN HELL!!
So I’ve found that most websites send out the “notifications” well after the products are back in stock so by the time you get notified they’re already sold out again. As far as powder goes during the Brandon era, www.powdervalley.com has been my go to. They update their in stock stuff several times a day though and it goes quick so the best way I’ve found is to go to their smokeless powders sectiom, click the “filters” and mash the “in stock” check box then save it as your homepage on your internet browser. That way everytime you enter the world wide web you get a quick rundown of what’s in stock. They get pretty much everything in stock at least once every month or 2, so if your quick on the drawl pretty much any powder is accessible. I scored three 8lb jugs of H4350 from there a month or so ago and that **** was hard to find even before Brandon got elected. As far as primers go, that’s a little tougher, occasionally www.midsouthshooterssupply.com will have some in stock but I’ve found I have had more luck by keeping on the lookout for 1-lb jugs of hard to find powders then buying them, even if I don’t use that specific powder, and then trading that for a brick of primers. By hard to find powders I’m referring to things like VARGET, superformance, RL-17, power pistol, etc. The holy grail is H4350 because it’s crazy hard to find and has been for like 8 years and some of those long range folks won’t use anything else and you would be amazed what they would trade for a pound of it (not that I blame them, it’s a hell of a good powder and my most accurate 6.5 load uses it, but I don’t necessarily have to have it because I’ve got 2 other loads using different powders which are almost as accurate and both of those are accurate enough that my shooting ability is still the weakest link in the system) As far as projectiles, grafs and sons has been pretty good for the past year or so, I even scored some 200gr a-frames in 30 cal recently and that’s always been a tough one for me to find. Plus the standard fallbacks of midway, nachos, brownells/sinclair, etc occasionally have some good finds you can scoop up, but like the others you gotta check them frequently because **** goes quick once it’s in stock. Not much I can recommend as far as brass because i don’t buy new unfired brass. The way I figure, I am gonna take new brass and fireform it to my chamber then neck size and trim it once I get it anyway so whenever I need more brass I just buy a big case of whatever factory ammo I can find that uses lapua or norma brass and then go plinking. Once I’ve shot the case then I reload that. After adding the cost of unfired brass to the cost of the powder, primers, and bullets that I would need to fire form it then it’s not that much more expensive to buy whatever the cheapest factory ammo I can find that uses the right brass and then I’ve got a bunch of ammo that I need to go use which is a great excuse to go plinking/fire forming. Plus fire-forming my brass is a great time to experiment and learn new things such as what would happen if you shot a squirrel in the ass with a 300wm (IIRC, it will skin and quarter it for you but the front quarters/legs will be really hard to find cuz they go flying off like 20 yds in 2 different directions)
I promise you I wont be antsy in retirement. All I'm gonna think of is no radio chirping all day long and where are the next places to hunt and fish.
The wife and I have been on a major declutter tear around the house in the first 10 days of retirement. We both agreed that we needed to go through every room in the house and throw away crap that is clutter. So far 2 load of trash have been hauled off. Old paper work from the 80's and 90's shredded and burnt. Cloths, shoes and electronics donated or recycled. I am amazed the sheer amount of stuff clogging our closets and shelves that were stuck there and had not moved in years. I went through this same exercise when my mom passed away last year and promised myself my kids would not have to do it when we are gone! Warmer weather hits and we're going to tackle the garage and shed.. That ought to be good for a couple more loads.
I have everything except powder. I got a brick of primers. Bullets are not that hard to find. I've expanded my list of powders to about 15 that should give acceptable results for the 3 bullet wts I would consider for my 30-06. I have a lifetime supply of brass. LOL Bought 250 new cases back in the mid eighties when I started reloading plus factory ammo that I have shot and from others as well. All those places you mentioned are on my list except Nachos. Never hear of them. Will have to look them up.
Kudos to you for thinking of your kids. My wife and I have been out at my MIL's almost every weekend since October when my FIL passed, throwing crap away. They were both hoarders. Most of his garbage is gone, now we have to tackle hers. The last thing anyone's kids need while mourning the loss of parents is a mess to deal with.
It took 2 years to empty my parents house, the hard part was that they were both still alive to supervise. My dad had a boxes of vinyl floor tile from 1974 and 3 houses ago, and I had to explain that the adhesive was no good anymore before I threw them in the dumpster. Best thing we ever did was move because we got rid of a lot of stuff, we moved only with what we needed. We did not move any beds, or furniture to the new house, got rid of a lot of stuff in the barn and 2 big garages, a lot less clutter, in truth I don't miss anything I got rid of.
LOL. Figured that out later that day. Hit another scammer site yesterday. $250 min order but everything you put in the cart is in stock. LOL Lots of misspelled words but figured I'd run it up to shipping/payment for ****s and giggles. Yup, only way to pay Zelle, Venmo, Bitcoin. The kicker was Pay Pal. Pay Pal is anti gun. You can't even buy ammo with Pay Pal. If you do, they will revoke your account.
Getting there. Have found that the FMJ target rounds hold tighter groups than the hunting rounds. Bout half inch difference at 100 yards and over an inch out to 250. Still tuning!
I came really close to becoming a sucker for one of those sites like 6-mo back. I needed some more Hornady LNL die bushings and couldn’t find them anywhere. Put them in the cart and was about to check out but decided to see if they had any subsonic 22lr in stock. As soon as I saw that literally everything imaginable was in stock I figured out it was too good to be true and checked the BBB website and sure enough it was a scam. The website I came across actually took visa, Mastercard, and Amex, as well as PayPal. They did a really good job of making themselves look legit. They had created Facebook, yelp, and Google reviews for themselves and even showed up on Google maps as a physical store in Texas complete with a photo of their storefront (which after closer examination was actually just a random storefront in a strip mall that they had photoshopped their name onto it and the actual building at that address was a standalone auto shop instead of a strip mall). I got really lucky that I was running low on subsonic 22 ammo and caught on to their scam before I entered my credit card number because they could’ve taken me to the cleaners. (Well I guess I could’ve disputed the charges with amex but still that’s a pain in the ass)
Try a different hunting round, some rifles just don’t like certain ammo. Even two identical versions of the same can have different bullets that they shoot better than others. Hunting bullets are usually more accurate than FMJ so it might be that your rifle just doesn’t like that particular sig load. I’ve got a 6.5 prc that’s really finicky about bullets. It will shoot the lights out with Hornady 123gr ELD-M but the 140gr version of that bullet shoots like crap and that same rifle shoots great with the 140gr SST but can’t shoot the 123gr version of that well at all
3 yrs 11.5 months if I wanted to retire with 25 yrs in the Virginia public employee system. Of course, the more years I tack on the more it multiplies my monthly income. But I ain't a worldly man. I just need some coffee and a fishing pole.
We've been doing the same., I'm dumping a lot of sewing patterns, crafting books, paperbacks I've read and reread with prints to small to read now...Lol. How many draws of camera cables does one need? Hubby has boxes and boxes of paper work. Stuff from 1979 when we got married. Clothes and even linens found in the farthest reaches of closets that haven't been seen in a decade and actually seem to be deteriorating. If you watch just a few of the different storage guy videos on you tube....it will make you buy a few big 30 gal trash cans, one for each section of your house to practice your"dunking skills".
I will admit there are days but I also know that if I retire it is not going to be everyday with the grandkids and I would be bored, not ready to take up square dancing with the wife with matching outfits. I need the routine of getting up and going to work.
